The Best Thanksgiving Ever

I am not a fan of Thanksgiving.  In fact, for many years, I refused to eat the Thanksgiving feast. Sometimes I would cook something completely different for my little family (ex-husband and myself) and other times we would go to my sister's house where she would cook me something extra.  Eventually I fell in line but I rarely enjoyed the holiday.  When we moved down to SouthLite we started camping for Thanksgiving.  That was great until last year when it rained and Angel was with us for a total of 4 hours.

This year b and I decided we'd do a more traditional Thanksgiving at home.  Angel, who now has seniority at his job, did not have to work and came up Tuesday evening (and stayed until Sat afternoon! Longest visit from him in quite some time).  We got a chance to hang and talk and bond all day Wednesday.  We took Pupzilla on a long walk and talked the day away.

Angel & Pupzilla

Pumpkin and BB came up Wednesday evening.  b came home from work and made a fabulous spinach lasagna and garlic bread.  We all sat around the table eating and drinking and talking and laughing.  It was wonderful.  BB and Angel bonded over a geeky online video game and spent much of the evening with their heads bent over a laptop.

b spent all Thanksgiving Day cooking.  He started at 9 in the morning making us a wonderful frittata and then went right into the preparing the big meal.  It was his first real bird.  He usually cooks Thanksgiving dinner in dutch ovens, which won't fit a whole bird.  He followed Mr. Brown's advice and it turned out beautifully.  We set the table and spruced ourselves up and then sat down to a huge meal that was over way too soon.

b's bird

Dessert was apple cobbler and homemade ice cream.  We were too full to touch the pumpkin pie.

The next morning Pumpkin and BB had to go visit some of her relatives before they drove back home.  But we had new visitors.  My sister, C, and her fiance (my soon to be BIL that I had never met before) K, had spent the holidays at K's brother's house, which is just a few cities away from SouthLite.  So C & K showed up Friday morning and stayed until Saturday morning.  b had to go to work but Angel and I had a lovely time with them both.  We went out for brunch and then took Pupzilla for a long walk, but mostly we talked and talked and talked.  I so miss having my sisters around.  K was super sweet and smart and funny (with a very dry dry sense of humor that I admire).

This morning everyone had to get up and leave but Angel lazed about for a while.  We enjoyed one more breakfast together and then he was on the road.  This has been the best visit home from him since he went to school.  He seems so much more comfortable now and acted like the son I remember.  I'm sure it has to a lot to do with being securely on his own and settled in his new life. Intellectually I knew our relationship was still strong but this is the first time it actually felt good to be with him since he's left home.  It did me a world of good and now I'm so looking forward to Christmas.

My View

Over the Thanksgiving holiday Angel took a stroll down memory lane with his dad. They went up to our old neighborhood, where Angel spent a good portion of his early life. It is the area he thinks of as home.

As would be expected, he found everything to be much smaller than he remembered. However during the excursion they ran into our old landlord. It seems our landlord took over our apartment after it was vacated and spruced it up quite a bit. It is now his pied-a-terre/study. He was kind enough to bring them up and give them a tour.

Angel had his camera with him and took a few pictures. He shared several with me. It was strange seeing my old home looking like a completely new home.

I loved that apartment. We moved there when Angel was 18 months. Prior to that we lived in a decent-sized (for ReallyBigCity) one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that many described as funky and eclectic but did nothing for me.* Our apartment was on the first floor in the back and looked out only at alleys and other buildings.

By the time Angel was walking (10 months) it was clear the apartment could not contain all three of us--at least not if we wanted to remain sane. So I started apartment hunting. I was working full-time and had just gone back to school part-time. I got no help in the search from my ex. I did get a lot of help from my sister Jo, as I was looking in her neighborhood. She had recently given birth to my nephew and so we pushed strollers through empty apartments for about 6 months.

And then I found my view:





The apartment had several other features that I adored as much as the view, including a truly funky neighborhood that was convenient to Jo.

We lived there together until Angel was nine and I realized I could no longer deny the marriage was over. Unfortunately my ex did not share my feelings and the break-up was difficult. He could not afford the apartment on his own and I could. It was a 2-bedroom apartment and Angel's only real home so it seemed obvious that I would stay and he would go. Except he refused to go. After 6 months I finally moved out.

He stayed a few more years, renting out Angel's old room to make ends meet, until he found his new love and now wife and moved in to her apartment (also with a view). Angel was sad to see the apartment go but I had long put it behind me.

Yet now, seeing these pictures, I miss it.

*The great thing about that neighborhood was that Sensei lived right across the street. How that came to be is an interesting story for another time.

Birthday Wishes

My sister, Meg, turned 50 today. Meg is the oldest of us four girls and I am the youngest. This means Meg gets to break trail for each new decade and I bring up the rear. From what I gather 50 can be a hard one.

I don't get to speak to my sisters as often as I'd like and I see them once a year at best. Today I got to talk with Meg for over an hour and a half. She is going through an exciting but stressful time in her life right now (turning 50 seems to be the least of it) and it was wonderful to catch up on it all. My niece is throwing her a big birthday bash this Saturday, which I unfortunately will not be able to attend. Hopefully I'll make it up North sometime soon and get a chance to spend some time with her.

In our talk today Meg suggested that Angel may be so reluctant to come home because he needs to be--if he admits to himself that he misses us it may be too hard to be away. I will say this thought had crossed my mind before but than I instantly thought it is too nice of a thought to have. A little too comforting--making it suspect. However it as nice to be able to talk to her about it, as she is the only one of us who has gone through the college years and come out on the other end.

Happy Birthday Meg.

Sisters

They are four of us; I'm the youngest. When we were very young we distributed the identities of the Fantastic Four. I don't know their names but my oldest sister was the guy who could fly and turn into fire, the second oldest was the guy who turned into rocks (very Hulk-like), my third sister was the only girl - who could become invisible and had a force field, and I was the guy who could stretch like rubber.

Later we took on the identities of the sisters in Little Women. My oldest sister was Meg and the second oldest was Jo. These fit in both birth order and personality. However I ended up being Beth, the one too good for this world who dies young (I was not-so-affectionately nicknamed "Little Miss Goody-Two Shoes" and was the child who came down with every illness and/or injury). My third sister, who is only 16 months older than me, was Amy, the youngest. Amy is the girly one, the artistic/creative one, the emotional and spoiled one.

I spoke to my sister, Amy, last night. She is in a world of pain. We've been raised to hide/deny pain in my family, so Amy is very busy. We talked for over an hour. Amy and I have lived together a good deal of our lives. We grew up sharing a room; we went to camp together; we shared an apartment (along with Boy's dad - my first husband) for several years; and we spent every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together until we were in our 30's. Amy is a martial artist, like me, and we were in the same dojo for 17 years.

At one point last night she reminded me that years ago I had told her I imagined the two of us living together and traveling when we were old and our husbands were gone. She's thinking about this now and although her children are her life and she loves her husband she's good with the idea of ending up with a sister.

I've invited her to come visit for a long weekend. She needs the mental break. She said her family is "stymied" right now. I think some space could help her get unstuck so she and her family can move on. She had a lot of reasons why she couldn't come visit--money, the kids' schedule, logistics, etc. I told her that I had already spoken to Meg and Jo and we had a plan for every difficulty. She said it would take a lot of coordination, she felt bad she couldn't manage it on her own, but if we could make it work she love to come more than anything.

I told her we'd make it work.

Story Telling

Last night I spoke to 2ndSister about 3rdSister. 3rdSister is going through a BAAAAD time and when I say BAAAD time I mean the type of situation that takes you years and years to extract yourself from, even longer to recover from, and leaves permanent damage. We've all been seeing this coming for a long time and 3rdSister is finally ready to see it herself. But that's not really what I want to post about.

My talk with 2ndSister, as she conveyed the latest information and progress--if you can call it that--lasted 2 1/2 hours. Now that's not really all that unusual for us and these conversations used to occur on a fairly regular basis. However since I've moved away (1stSister, 2ndSister, and 3rdSister all live about an hour from each other in a place we like to call "UpNorth") my contact with all three sisters has dropped considerably.

After our lengthy discussion, in a move that can only be described as denial, I spent a lot of time thinking about how 2ndSister (and all of us really) talks. 2ndSister tells stories. Really she tells stories within stories within stories. A conversation with her with her can involve as many characters and subplots as a Tolstoy novel. She is also the Queen of foreshadowing. My own conversational storytelling gets mired down in details. I have a researcher's need for pinpoint accuracy, which can kill a good story.

My research for the past two years has focused on listening to women's lives and I've come to realize that some of us talk in stories and others do not. But no one, and I mean no one, rivals 2ndSister. I had the opportunity of transcribing an interview she did and was able to see, on the page, what I've experienced my whole life. My sister talks in novels. So last night I talked a novel with my sister. Unfortunately it was a tragedy.